Re: Beanie?

As a lad they were either bobble hats, if with bobble, or ski hats if without bobble. A beanie was an American smooth woven rather than knitted cap, possibly with propeller on top, similar to a baseball cap, but without the peak.

Optional instructions

To remove the cambelt drain the coolant system before slackening the water pump bolts and rotating the water pump to release the tension on the belt.

Hmm,

Slackens water pump and turns, three drips of coolant later the bolts are nipped back up and the belt is loose.

Reassembly performed in reverse order.

I did shear one of the cambelt cover bolts, then snapped the lug with the hole for the bolt off while trying to drill bolt remnants and use a stud remover. Cue making a new bracket bolted to another handy lug to replace broken lug.

Oh oh

Re: 1984

You mean all of the pensioners that up until the point of drawing a pension were paying into the pension pot so they would have a pension when they retired? Not to mention the ones with a large enough pension to be still paying tax and supporting the education of young people.

Note: I'm not a pensioner and at the rate the pension age is increasing probably won't live long enough to draw a state pension.

Re: Statistics

It looks like part of the argument is that the statistics themselves are biased. It is also pointed out that methods other than policing should be used to reduce crime, of course you would need to use statistics to know where to target that effort...

Funded by a car manufacturer by any chance?

Blowing the entire budget on a new car does not make fiscal sense, buy something a few years old that has taken the main depreciation hit, but should still be reliable. You can always get a make with a long warranty if you know nothing about cars and don't really care what you drive, then pocket the remaining cash to cover repairs or buy something else if not needed.

Re: PET

Re: Northerners...

How weird, I must have been brought up in a different version of the north, chips were eaten with mushy peas and mint sauce when I was a nipper. When I was old enough to be looking for post pub scran it might have been chips and curry sauce, but gravy should only be served with Yorkshire plain pudding or with onions on sausage and mash.

I have lived down here for nearly thirty years though so it could be my memory has under gone selective editing during therapy. Probably explains why I like chips and mayonaise a little too much.

This is the basis of about the only nightmare I cannot take control of now, it is so bad that when I am having one I can even anticipate what the next layer of despair is going to be. Which makes sense since it is happening inside my own head, but definitely makes me think I have been doing this too long. Could be time to change career to something low stress like cage fighting or maybe nude glass blowing.

Re: Program says "Stop" situation says "move".

I think four, or is it three given the vertical is not that important, dimensions is still too simplistic. By the time you add in probability scenarios for all of the actors and how they might interact it is more like a branching many worlds scenario.

Re: Sunday (autonomous) driving

" but took a BMW with their wizz-bang / charge the earth "sports" gearbox"

It was a £150 option on mine, very rarely specified though, the steering wheel paddles are handy for overtaking, however most of the time it just stays in drive and I knock the lever over into sport on the approach to tighter bends so it will use a lower ratio. Mine has the ZF6 and I hear the ZF8 is better still at being in the right gear.

Re: Sorry, but ...

"Can open, worms escaping..."

Maggots surely?

For many of us Jon was our first Doctor so will always rate highly, but I agree all of the incarnations have brought something to the party. My wife has vowed never to watch it again, I will because very occasionally there is a good episode and hopefully this will still happen.

In the right seat

Re: Artificial constructs

"you turn into an underpass"

That would seem to be rather a rookie error for someone that gets into fights with armed nutjobs, particularly such a very long one. The underpass will need to be at least a kilometre long, straight and level, at car chase speeds to see an accident 30 seconds away, you presumably have very good eysight or have some kind of image enhancing goggles on.

Clearly in your scenario you stop about a 100m (depends how fast you can run) from the accident, slew your car sideways blocking the tunnel and run towards the exit. As the bad guys stop, exit their cars and give chase you fire repeatedly into the fuel tank of your car causing it to explode and deter the bad guys from continuing the pursuit. You run to the accident area and steal one of the cars of the good samaritans that has stopped to help and make your getaway.

I've never played Grand Theft Auto so I just guessed that is where you got your scenario from. ;-)

Artificial constructs

The four seconds is problematic for me for a number of reasons. In an urban environment you should be able to come to a stop in much less distance than your vehicle can cover in four seconds, in a modern car this should even be possible if one of the braking circuits has failed*. This is with a meatbag in control, the reaction time for an automomous car would be much quicker and sounding the horn to warn the pedestrians would be near instantaneous.

Even if we assume a trolley bus with a long stopping distance it is still absurd as an automated system would not need to rely on sensor fitted to the bus alone, it would use external sensors fitted along the route. If it cannot stop in the distance that can be seen to be clear then it is going too fast!

The scenario also fundamentally ignores that the pedestrians will also have four seconds or so to notice and react to the oncoming vehicle, particularly after it has sounded a warning, the chances of them standing still while the vehicle manoeuvers is very low. It is probably better to brake in a straight line, being predictable, and hope the pedestrian get out of the way.

* An EV could have a tertiary braking system in the form of regen or even emergency reverse drive of the motor.

The scenarios should be far more inventive, for example, if an autonomous vehicle detects a human controlled or apparently out of control vehicle about to hit pedestrians should it intervene by hitting that vehicle?

Re: Confused

"A litre is too small for petrol, but there's no useful equivalent to the gallon."

We could use a decalitre and shorten it to dec (deck), though that would have a similar issue to pounds and kilos. Filling up would cost about £12 a dec, but at least the mpd would be over twice as good as mpg. Perhaps even kpd would become popular as it would give useable number ranges.